Tilbury’s London Container Terminal secures new Caribbean service

Tilbury’s London Container Terminal (“LCT”) announces that Streamlines’ new BLUE STREAM weekly service will call at London’s major port from February, as part of a new service linking Northern Europe to and from the Caribbean, Central America and Florida.

Streamlines, which is part of the SeaTrade group, is a niche container line which operates in the Caribbean, with a strong focus on perishable cargo, and has launched this new service as part of their development plan. The new Blue Stream service will commence in January 2016 from North Europe and arrive for its inaugural call at Tilbury on the 12th February 2016. This rotation will prove to be one of the fastest Caribbean links to the UK.

Commenting on the introduction of the new call, Jamie Frater, Senior Asset Manager, London Container Terminal said: “The new Blue Stream service is great news for LCT and a positive start to the New Year. It further strengthens our North / South service links, and builds on our existing relationship with Streamline’s parent company Sea Trade, who are already a reefer customer at LCT By using London’s major port, Streamlines will benefit from our unrivalled logistical networks and have access to Europe’s largest chilled warehousing facilities at the container terminal operated by NFT, so close to London. Our location means that LCT is the ideal port for UK exporters and importers.”

Pablo Gonzalez from StreamLines said: “At StreamLines, we are extremely proud of this new venture we are stepping into, which is very much in line with the strategic view of the company and of the whole of the Seatrade Group. The company is going through an intensive investment programme, which includes the building of several container ships and for this reason, the new Blue Stream Service becomes a stepping stone to the future of the company. It is in that spirit too that we have decided to include a call to the Port of Tilbury, which we see as an important entry point for refrigerated cargo to the UK.”

Blue Stream service details:

Central America: With calls to Puerto Cortes in Honduras and Santo Tomas de Castilla in Guatemala, and offering a transit time of just 14 days from Central America to Europe, and the only one direct to UK, this service will be second to none on its offer to our clients. In addition, BLUE STREAM Service will serve Central America to Florida in just 3 days transit time. This service will also be able to serve for the import cargo from Europe, including UK, into Central America. In addition, from Rotterdam we will be offering connections to many other destinations, such as in Scandinavia, the Baltic and even to Spain and Portugal.

Florida: Subject to pending US regulatory approvals, currently under process, StreamLines will offer the fastest service to the UK, with just 14 days into Tilbury, against 23 days offered today by the only direct service in the market. BLUE STREAM service will also connect US exports to Northern Europe via Rotterdam, and to France via Radicatel.

French West Indies: In continuation to what was until now our Seaban service, StreamLines will now add calls to the port of Fort de France in Martinique, making our BLUE STREAM Service capable to go beyond from our current offer to Pointe a Pitre in Guadeloupe and Philipsburg in Saint Martin. The transit time from Radicatel (Le Havre area) will be of 10, 11 and 12 days respectively.